Swing for Two
by Shadow Quil
Summary: A childhood fic for NaruSaku fans, enjoy. Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto!


Swing for two

A boy, no older than nine no younger than seven, can often be found sitting on the old swing outside the ninja academy. No friends ever come to meet him or talk to him, since he has none. No family to meet him when he goes home to his apartment at night, since he doesn't have a family. Hated by his village, his teachers and the kids his age, older and younger, he feels isolated. This doesn't stop him from joking around and wearing a smile all the time though.

His name, you ask? Uzumaki Naruto. His hair is bright blonde and spikes out at all angles while his eyes are a striking shade of oceanic blue. Some might say he bares a frightening resemblance to the fourth Hokage, if they didn't believe that it would be a disgrace to their village to claim such things. You see, Naruto wasn't your average boy. He had a fox demon, the Kyuubi, sealed inside him at birth and everyone, even those who didn't know about it, hated him for it. In fact, not even he knew about the demon.

So, there he was, as always, sitting along on the swing outside the academy with no one around. The school day had ended a few hours before and Iruka, the one person he knew who didn't completely hate him, had gone home. No one dared to speak to him, since their parents scolded them for even saying 'hi' or waving. Naruto was used to this by now and learned to accept it as it came. In time, the greetings stopped and the bullying became more common.

Surprise met him one day in the form of a saviour. A young girl in his class named Haruno Sakura, who used to get bullied constantly for having a slightly larger forehead than most, but now was quite popular. It was true that she had never taken part in bullying or being mean to him, but her friends did. They were the ones who did it the most actually. That was why it shocked him to no end when she came to his rescue.

Naruto had been sitting on his swing, ignoring the taunting and jeering of the kids his age, some older, as well as the small rocks and stones they threw at him. It was a regular day, but that did lessen the sting of the rocks and the tears that threatened to fall at any given moment. Of course, he was used to this. He could hold the tears until he got home, but they still came. Naruto listened to the familiar chants; 'whisker boy', 'freak', 'weirdo'. This was nothing new.

"Leave him alone!" A girl's voice broke the chanting and taunting as the person who owned that voice broke though the crowds and stood in front of him, thus shielding him from their eyes. He could only stare in shock at this girl. He could tell from the red dress, pink hair and red ribbon that this was the pretty girl he like, but never spoke to of course.

"Why should we, forehead?" A boy asked, now mocking her too. Naruto half expected her to turn on him and join the crowd or just run away now that they had chosen to pick on her too. It was common knowledge that the girl couldn't be called forehead without her friend, Ino, yelling at you or her to shrink back in fear of you.

"Because I said so!" So it was even more of a surprise when she stood her ground and yelled right back. The boy who had yelled to his threw a stone in the direction of Naruto again, but the girl protecting him…_caught it_! He didn't even know she was that good a ninja. No offence to her, since he wasn't the best either, but her skill as a ninja lacked in the physical aspect and fell more in the mental area of it all.

"Come on, they're not worth it!" Another girl yelled from the crowd as they started departing, much earlier than usual.

"Hn. I guess freaks really _do_ stick together." The boy from before stated with a sneer. As soon as everyone was gone, Sakura sighed in relief and slumped to the ground, forgetting Naruto was their. The latter just couldn't believe that she had actually stood up for him!

"Are you okay?" Sakura asked him, remembering that the boy was still on the swing behind her.

"H-Hai." Naruto stuttered, nodding slowly. Now he expected a trick of some kind or for her to laugh at him, call him a name and walk off to get the others back. Not that Naruto though she was mean or anything, but all the other girls had been nasty to him.

"I'm Haruno Sakura!" She declared. "You're Naruto, right? I think I sit near you in Kage-history class." Sakura observed. Naruto nodded, she was right after all. "You don't talk much do you? I though that, with all the pranks and jokes and all, you'd be a bit more…chatty." She confessed.

"I-I am! I just d-don't get why you h-helped me." Naruto stuttered, turning slightly pink as her emerald orbs softened and she smiled at him.

"Well, I get picked on sometimes too. It wasn't nice for me, so I though that you must hate it too." She mused lightly.

"Well, how did you catch that stone? In class you're…well, you're kinda…"

"Suckish at physical stuff?" Sakura asked. Naruto nodded shyly. "I don't know. Ino-chan told me that people get better at stuff when they protect someone they care about. I don't _care_ about you, but I don't want to see you get hurt either."

"So…if you don't care about me…you don't want to be my friend?" He asked sadly.

"Of course I want to be friend, silly! We'll be friends forever!" Sakura declared with a grin. "I have to go home. I'll see you tomorrow in class, Naruto!" Sakura called as she ran off, waving with a big grin on her pale face. Naruto waved back slightly and smiled.

Two and a half weeks passed and Naruto and Sakura were known for hanging out around the swing outside the academy. He was alone and her parents didn't take any notice of her unless it could get them into trouble with what she was doing. Little did Sakura know, hanging around with Naruto would get her into _a lot_ of trouble. Not only did the bullying on her start again, but Naruto and she began to plan and carry out pranks together. With her brains and his prank-pulling skills, they got away with way more than Naruto did alone.

However, when her parents found out about the pranks and her grades in academics lowering dangerously, they took an interest and went to the academy to see the reason for her sudden failure. To say that they were shock to see her with Naruto, the Kyuubi kid, would be the understatement of the century. They literally ripped her away from him and yelled at her for befriending the Uzumaki orphan.

Sakura didn't speak to him after that, mostly out of fear of what her parents would do if they found her disobeying them. When he waved to her, she would just look at him and walk away with her friends. The bullying on her began to die down again as she stopped hanging around him, but Sakura felt worse than she did before she met Ino. That was when she had made the biggest choice of her life.

Uzumaki Naruto was, once again, sitting on his lonely swing. No bullies were around him today, since most people were with their families on Sundays and Saturdays. Of course, the odd child would wander passed and taunt him for a while or throw something at him, but nothing could fill the hole in Naruto's heart where Sakura had once been.

"Are you gonna mope there all day or come to the park with me?" A female voice asked. Naruto looked up, since the girl was in front of him, and gasped. Sakura was standing there, in her usual red dress, smiling and holding something behind her back. Naruto smiled weakly and tried to see what she was holding.

"What have you got?" Naruto asked, forgetting that she was supposed to be avoiding him like everyone else.

"What's the date?" She asked.

"Um…October 10th?" He questioned in return. Sakura grinned.

"You are now, officially, nine years old! Happy birthday, Naruto!" She declared, handing him a badly wrapped present.

Naruto looked at it and smiled at Sakura before opening the gift. It was an orange jacket, the orange being the same colour as his trousers. The collar was high and white and the jacket had bits of blue on it as well. He knew that Sakura would have rather ripped this jacket up burnt it than bought it, but he had told her on one of their trips though town that he liked it.

He hugged Sakura and put on the jacket, giving Sakura enough time to wipe the pink from her cheeks before he looked at her face again. The boy then looked at his female friend, only to see she was looking down the road with wide eyes. He looked too and saw that her father was standing there with a strict expression. He gestured for Sakura to go to him and she did, only to get yelled at and grounded.

Sakura turned away from Naruto and they never hung out after that, for real this time.

Of course, this didn't stop the occasional gestures they gave each other.

A smile for him as she passed the swing…

…Money on the counter when she went for ramen…

…A frown and scolding when the bullies came along…

…A hug in secret when tears were shed….

And a lonely swing…

…fit for two.


End file.
